As reported by numerous news agencies, starting 2027 families of Free- and Reduced-qualified students cannot be charged transaction fees for NSLP meals. The rule complicates the situation since money in the student lunch accounts are used by students for breakfast, lunch and ala-carte items alike. At the time of parents making a deposit into the student lunch account, a cafeteria system cannot tell how the money will be spent by a student, so separating transaction fees between NSLP and non-NSLP student purchases cannot be done at the time of a deposit.
Additional complication is that in PushCoin users enjoy the freedom to use the Wallet balance to co-pay for webstore or school fees. A separation of NSLP food money (no transaction fees) from the ala-carte & fees money (subject to transaction fees) would be inconvenient for your families. In the end, families would prefer to use their money to pay for any school expenses.
To tackle this challenge, we are suggesting how this can be set up in PushCoin once the USDA rule goes in effect:
- School administration decides which products, not just food items, are subject to transaction fees based on the student Free-Reduced-Paid (FRP) status. This can be limited to only the NSLP items, but can be expanded to include other items of any type, including webstore or fees.
- When a charge takes place, the system looks up the student’s FRP status and if a qualifying transaction-fee discount is found, it applies it.
- Parents do not pay a transaction fee at the time of making a deposit into student Wallet or Fees, regardless of the method of payment, Card or eCheck.
A notable difference compared to how the system works today is that parents of Fully-Paid students end up paying transaction fees even if they use the eCheck option, i.e. the transaction fee is uniform across all payment methods. This approach allows parents to move money freely between their student accounts and pay for any product using the Wallet funds. The school decides what the transaction cost for non-Free/Reduced students should be, but a reasonable practice involves calculating the annual cost of credit card processing, then using that as the basis for your transaction fee add-on applied to fully paid students.
While 2027 seems like a far away time-frame, this USDA ruling complicates the accounting and charging of student accounts. We encourage the school administrators to consider the impact of the new USDA ruling and engage PushCoin in early discussions if the above proposal does not meet their needs.
If no opposition and alternative methods are proposed, PushCoin will continue with the implementation as outlined in this post.